


and sore must be the storm

by Sorrel



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Daud's Guilt Complex, F/M, Gen, Jessamine Kaldwin Lives, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: Six months ago the Royal Protector was arrested on charges of heresy and treason, accused of introducing the Plague into Dunwall.  Now the rats choke the city, the man who framed him has been installed as the Acting Lord Regent, and the Tower is under quarantine, with no way of knowing whether the empress is alive or dead.  Corvo is facing down a short and brutish death in prison, helpless to save his empress or his daughter from the Spymaster's machinations... until an unknown ally sends him the key to his cell.
Relationships: Corvo Attano & Daud, Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 62





	and sore must be the storm

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson. If you are the sort of person who enjoys having a soundtrack while you read, just listen to ["Two Knocks" by aeseaes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyB4iQ0d4c) on repeat, God knows that's what I did writing it.

The worst thing about the worst day of Corvo's life was the fact that he hadn't seen it coming. Not a hint, not so much as a whisper of warning before tragedy struck. He'd known from the start that he might one day fall in Jessamine's service, but he'd always thought he'd meet his end on the wrong end of a blade or bullet. Not the slither of false accusations, claims of heresy and treason masterfully executed in one fell stroke. That wasn't the kind of blow he was trained to parry. There wasn't anything he could have done.

Reminding himself of that didn't do much against the memory of Jessamine's face, bone-white and furious, alone up there on the dais with their crying daughter in her arms as the Overseers hauled him away. And Corvo remembered it all too well, as there was little else to occupy his mind here in Coldridge. Just the pain, and his memories, and the catastrophic failure of the singular duty that had governed his existence for almost twenty years.

"-vo. Corvo! Come now, Lord Protector, we were having a perfectly pleasant conversation. It'd be a shame to end it so early."

Gloved fingers sifted through his matted hair, a parody of tenderness that ended in a cruelly tight fist. Lolling head pulled upright, Corvo winced away from the pull at his cheek and obediently squinted to bring the blurry figure in front of him into focus.

" _There_ we are," Burrows said, low and rich with satisfaction. "Glad to have you back with us. I worried for a moment we might have lost you."

If Corvo was still able to laugh he would have at that, but as it was all he could do was stare back at him in stony silence. Burrows didn't seem surprised by his lack of reaction, but then, he was well used to it by now. Corvo had been under his tender mercies for nearly six months, and he hadn't spoken a single word since the moment they first put him in the chair.

"Now, where were we?" Burrows continued blithely, assured now of Corvo's continued attention. "Ah, yes. Your confession."

Corvo said nothing.

"I have the audiograph right here, you know." Burrows dropped his voice into a lower register, the closest the man could come to coaxing. "Just a few short words, and all this can be over. You've held out admirably, no one could question your dedication. But there's just the two of us here, Corvo. There's no one left to impress. You can let go."

Corvo said nothing. Burrows studied his face in silence, then nodded sharply and, without further warning, struck out with an open hand. The _crack_ of his gloved palm against Corvo's injured cheek echoed through the quiet room, and Corvo barely had time to register the muffled grunt of approval behind him before the red waves of pain took him under.

"-don't understand the reason for this foolish stubbornness!" Burrows was saying when Corvo came back. He'd apparently been at this for a minute, having progressed to pacing back and forth in front of his desk. The Burrows in the portrait on the wall above seemed to stare down in disapproval of all this uncontrolled motion. "You _must_ know by now that there is nothing to be gained. Delaying your inevitable fate serves you _nothing_. All you do is cheat yourself of an easy end."

Corvo said nothing.

"Do you think you thwart me by your silence? It's _over,_ Corvo. Parliament voted last week to name me Acting Regent, hadn't you heard? Only until the quarantine is lifted, of course, but until our beloved empress is returned to us-" Burrows placed a hand on his chest in a mockery of solemn sorrow. "-I have been entrusted to serve as her voice within Parliament. And, of course, to care for our dear princess in this time of crisis."

Corvo said nothing, but he must have made some expression, given something away with his eyes, because Burrows smiled, his narrow eyes lighting up with malice.

"Oh yes. Did you think me foolish enough to leave a convenient figurehead behind me, ripe for a coup? No, I think not. Lady Emily will benefit greatly from my guidance. She might yet grow into something worthy of her family name, now that she's away from the influence of you and your soft-headed empress."

Corvo said nothing. Burrows' eyes narrowed.

"I did warn you, Corvo. I _told_ you things couldn't continue as they were, and still you refused to listen. Well, I took care of that, didn't I? You'll lose your head to the block with the crowd screaming for blood, and generations from now people will _still_ curse your name as the man who brought the Plague to our shores. _I_ made that happen. And you really think you can thwart me _now_? Don't play the fool." He leaned in, his eyes alight with malice. "Don't you get it yet? The only thing leaving that Tower is corpses. You can't save her, and you can't save yourself. It's over. It's done. _I already won._ "

Corvo said nothing, but his jaw ached from the grind of his clenched teeth. Burrows laughed low and nasal and clapped Corvo's shoulder, right across the half-healed stripe from their last session.

"Think about it," he advised, and raised his voice. "Guards! Lord Attano needs an escort back to his cell."

###### 

The rattle of keys roused him, some hours later, and Corvo blinked awake in the chilly semidarkness. There was always a moment, when he first woke, where he wasn't sure where he was. Sometimes his sleeping mind tricked him back into his room in the Tower, stark white linen and his swords racked on the walls; less often to the Grand Guard barracks or his childhood cot in Karnaca, warm air heavy with spices and brine. Rarely, but most cruelly, it took him to Jessamine's enormous imperial bed, the fire crackling in the hearth and the smell of fresh-cut flowers on the table. Rolling over under the plush softness of an overstuffed duvet, nosing blindly into the silken fall of hair across the pillow-

-and then his eyes opened to the damp stone ceiling of his cell, and Corvo was back in the world once more.

The guards had mostly lost their wariness around him over the last six months, as poor food and poorer treatment had pared him down to a thin shadow of his former self. But even so, the way the single guard stood framed in the wide-open door of his cell seemed brazenly careless, almost mocking. Corvo squinted at his outline, silhouetted against the wavering gaslight: was he _trying_ to provoke Corvo into an escape attempt?

But there was none of the anticipatory edginess Corvo would expect from someone baiting a trap. The guard was nervous, sure, but not braced for violence, and he held the dinner tray with both hands instead of keeping one free for his sword. Corvo sat up slowly, managing the expected rush of vertigo with hard-won experience, and watched in silence as the guard bent to set it on the floor and straightened.

"You should eat, Corvo." _Corvo._ In Burrows' mouth the name was a purposeful insult; this seemed deliberate in a different way. "This meal comes from a friend."

Corvo blinked. The guard studied him for a moment, as if to make sure that he took his meaning, and then nodded sharply and stepped backwards, the cell door clanging shut behind him. Corvo tracked his footsteps as he moved away from the door - paused briefly, just out of his field of view, to set something on the table - and then continued deliberately on through the outer door and out of the cell block entirely.

Corvo waited out the next few breaths, braced against any other such surprises, and then rolled to his feet with a grunt and went to investigate the tray. Somewhat unsurprisingly, given the guard's fanfare, there turned out to be a key buried in the midst of the watery slop - but even more interesting was the table on the opposite wall, right where the guard had paused. Sitting on top, in plain view for anyone who happened to come along, was a belt, regulation-dyed leather coiled on top of the long straight line of a standard-issue guard's sword.

Well, now.

Corvo absently cleaned the key on the tail of his equally filthy shirt, considering his options. There was no note to accompany his unexpected bounty - he'd checked - so he had only the guard's word that this little gift was well-intentioned. It could still be bait, a trick to draw him out of his cell and into a convenient excuse for elimination. But who? Burrows hadn't gotten what he wanted out of him, and besides, it would've been easier to just let him perish on the table. Or maybe it was the opposite - a political enemy, someone who wanted to embarrass Burrows? Possible. But even if it was… could he risk the chance it wasn't a trap after all?

Did he truly care if it was?

Corvo stared at the sword on the table, hearing his pulse rush in and out in his ears. Then he took a deep breath, reached through the bars, and unlocked the door.

###### 

By the time he made it to the control room, Corvo was soaked with sweat and his limbs were trembling. Despite the welcome weight of the sword at his hip Corvo hadn't drawn it yet, avoiding notice where he could and using chokeholds where he couldn't. It was a quieter way, and one that left no betraying pools of blood in his wake. More tiring, too - but still, he kept on. Most of the guards in here were merely men with some small taste of power, no better or worse than any other, and didn't deserve a slit throat as the price for his freedom.

Most. There were some… Well, he didn't waste his limited strength for their mercy, to be sure. He hoped the rats found joy in their corpses. They'd certainly never caused any in life.

He'd been trying not to think about what would happen in the next room. Coldridge wasn't the fortress the Tower was, but it had been built to keep men inside, and as such the architects had had the good sense to ensure the inner gate could only be opened from the other side. He could radio the Tower gate, ask for an exit - no, his throat was shredded, he wouldn't get out the first word - wait for shift change - that was hours from now, they'd have discovered the bodies by then - force one of the guards to call for help? Corvo hadn't had much taste for torture _before_ he'd spent six months under the iron, but the guards wouldn't know that. He was Corvo Attano, the Doom of Dunwall. He was capable of anything.

The thought sat sour in his stomach, like he was surrendering some final piece of himself even Burrows hadn't been able to touch. But it turned out he cared more about living than about living down to their expectations, so he clutched his stolen sword in one hand and pistol in the other, and eased around the corner to peer into the gate room.

Two guards: one up by the control panel, one smoking at the bottom of the steps. Not ideal, but not impossible, either. Corvo didn't recognize either of them but the smoker was one the young side and obviously new to the job, fresh-meat jitters in his fingers and darting eyes, while the man on the switch had the comfortable slouch and thousand-yard stare of a lifer. Corvo hated himself for the way he flicked through the options: the kid was softer, more likely to fall in line, but sometimes the young ones decided they wanted to be heroes. The lifer had the flat soles and soft hands of a glorified doorman, so maybe-

There was a third man in the room.

Corvo's first thought was that he'd missed him somehow, but there was no way. Back in the Tower, when he- Back then, the rafters had been the _first_ place he'd checked when he entered a room, and he knew he hadn't lost the habit. That man hadn't been there twenty seconds ago. He must have come in along the pipes while Corvo had been studying the guards, which was a problem for a number of reasons. First, because if Corvo's situational awareness was degrading to the point he didn't notice an assassin moving right over his head then he was in even worse shape than he'd thought, and second…

Well, there was an _assassin_ in between him and the door, which meant this had been a trap, after all.

Corvo sucked in a breath and firmed his weary grip. He didn't think well of his chances against anyone with real training, especially not an experienced killer with the advantage of higher ground. But Corvo had the advantage of surprise, at least for the moment, and the assassin's attention seemed to be fixed on the guards. If Corvo shifted around to the right, went up on the crates while the smoker turned to put out his cigarette, then-

It took Corvo a moment to reconstruct the next few seconds into a comprehensible series of movements, because it happened fast enough that even his trained eye couldn't follow. One moment, the assassin was crouched on the pipes above; the next, he was on the floor behind the lifer, the tip of his sword sprouting from the man's throat. He yanked it free with a wet noise that made the smoker turn, but the assassin was somehow just _there,_ reappearing in a flicker of ash and shadow as his blade slid across the guard's throat. There was another one of those impossible flickers of not-motion as the assassin skipped away from the resultant spray of blood, and then both bodies hit the floor within a breath of each other. The assassin straightened, surveyed the room dispassionately… and then his gaze landed on Corvo.

Fuck.

"Peace," he said, before Corvo could so much as shift his grip. "I'm the friend."

Not _a_ friend, which would be implausible enough, but _the_ friend, and therefore the one who'd presumably arranged this little tableau. Corvo narrowed his eyes, but lowered the trembling tip of his sword anyway. Trap or not, it wasn't as if he could put up much of a fight. Maybe six months and two stone ago he might have had a chance of defending himself against the legendary Knife of Dunwall, but as it stood he doubted he'd make any better showing of himself than the poor dead guards.

"My name is Daud," he said, touching two fingers to his chest in introduction. "...although I suppose you know that already," he added with some bemusement, presumably in answer to whatever spasm of disbelief attempted to stir on Corvo's aching face. Corvo was- Corvo _had been_ charged with protecting the throne, and Daud's face was on half the wanted posters in the city. "Fair enough. It's an honor to meet the one who supplanted me as the most hated man in Dunwall."

Corvo couldn't even begin to think of a reaction to that, and therefore didn't try. Luckily, Daud didn't seem to expect one, just studied him in matching silence, head cocked ever-so-slightly to the side with an expression not unlike the Royal Physician upon being presented with a particularly interesting ailment.

"You look better than I would've thought," he said when he'd completed his survey. Corvo wondered distantly what _better_ meant in this context, and Daud helpfully obliged him a moment later with the clarification, "Six months is a lot longer than most last in Sullivan's hands."

Corvo didn't shudder at the Interrogator's name, but only because his exhausted body didn't have the energy to spare. In his head, though, there was a body looming, the stink of sweat and coal dust, the hiss of burning flesh-

"-suppose I shouldn't have worried," Daud was saying, when Corvo came back. "The _Acting Regent_ would want you intact for the headsman's axe."

That was factually correct - after his face had gotten infected the first time, Burrows had forbidden any other visible damage - but there was something else there too, something in Daud's sarcastic intonation that left Corvo feeling like there was something he was missing. Normally, he was pretty good at reading people, the truths they told with their bodies while tongues spilled honeyed lies. Normally, Corvo could stand behind the throne and watch the flex of muscle in someone's jaw or the cant of their shoulders and know what they were feeling, if they were lying, if they posed any threat to-

But Corvo wasn't at court now. Corvo was standing in the gate room of a prison he used to tour at Jessamine's elbow, less than two feet away from a man that six months ago would have been nothing but another threat to be eliminated. He'd just seen two men murdered in a blatant display of black magic that, up until a minute ago, he'd quite frankly thought just another bit of Abbey propaganda. Corvo knew he should feel… afraid, probably? Upset? Grateful? Something. He should have been feeling something.

Mostly, Corvo just felt tired.

Daud's expression changed slightly as the silence lingered, to puzzlement or irritation, Corvo couldn't tell and couldn't begin to guess. Probably Corvo was supposed to say something. Most men didn't talk just for the pleasure of their own voice, at least not outside of court. They expected responses. Corvo couldn't even muster an expression.

"Ah," Daud said, in the heavy quiet between them. It was a particularly loaded _ah,_ even to Corvo's exhausted ears, and it occurred to him that Daud was only just now realizing that Corvo was perhaps not as intact as he looked. "You're right. It can wait until we're out."

 _Out._ The word reverberated through him with a kind of hollow longing, and Corvo looked at the closed gate in reflexive confusion. Surely if anyone knew of a way past it would be the Knife of Dunwall, but-

"Not like that," Daud said, following the direction of his gaze. "I have another way. You'll have to let me take you, though."

There was little Corvo liked less than the idea of being slung over his shoulder like a sack of meal, but he'd bear far worse if it meant getting out. He tipped his head in wordless assent, but Daud studied him for a moment longer - deciding if he meant it? - before nodding sharply and stepping in close. Corvo braced himself, but to his surprise, Daud didn't make any move to hoist him up. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Corvo's shoulders, not unlike a friend escorting a drunkard after a night on the town. It still hurt, of course, the pressure spiking forgotten agonies from the swollen weals on Corvo's back, but pain was a familiar friend by now and Corvo didn't allow himself to struggle as Daud lifted his left hand, a symbol gleaming gold through the glove.

If Daud's sorcery had looked strange from the outside, it was _much fucking stranger_ from the inside. There was none of the lurching directionality of motion that Corvo was subconsciously braced to feel; instead, it was like the world moved _around_ them, light bending inwards as Daud clenched his fist and released it with a kind of soundless sucking pop that Corvo felt more than heard. There was a disorienting flash of coldblack _cold_ in between each shift, faster than Corvo could track: _blink_ and they were up on the pipes and _blink_ and they were in the yard and _blink_ and they were up on the wall and _blink_ and they were down on the rocks and _blink_ and-

They landed heavily enough that the boat rocked under them, the water sloshing angrily at the sides. Daud automatically steadied him with a hand under his elbow, releasing him abruptly a moment later with a vaguely disgusted noise at the back of his throat. "Sorry. Not used to passengers." A fractional tilt of his head. "Well. Not live ones, anyway."

Corvo had no answer to that… joke? Was that meant to be a joke? He was too busy staring at the man, his skin contracted tight from a chill like the ocean deeps and his ears ringing with a strange kind of distant singing.

Daud took no notice either way, already passing him a bundle of fabric. "Put that on and sit down," he instructed, taking the tiller seat. "We need to get out of here before they notice the bodies and raise the alarm."

The fabric turned out to be a cloak, the kind of voluminous oiled rain slicker favored by whalers in stormy northern waters. Corvo forced his trembling fingers to cooperate long enough to shake the thing out and pull it over his head, then dropped heavily into the opposite seat. It was possible it was less a decision than his legs just refusing to hold him anymore, but since he was supposed to be sitting anyway the semi-controlled collapse seemed to pass without notice. Or, more likely, Daud was just politely ignoring this newest evidence of Corvo's weakness. For a ruthless murderer and heretic, he had better manners than most of the nobles at court.

The thought amused Corvo, in a distant sort of way. He got almost all the way through thinking, _I'll have to tell-_ before he remembered that he wasn't going to be telling Jessamine anything. If Burrows hadn't been lying, he might not be able to tell anything to Jessamine ever again.

He didn't realize he was staring up at the Tower until Daud kicked him more-or-less gently in the foot and hissed, "Outsider's _eyes,_ keep your head down."

Corvo flinched away from the unexpected contact but hastily complied, tugging the hood up over his head and slumping further down on the seat. Daud made another one of those low throat-noises, apparently meant to express satisfaction since he didn't issue any further orders, and started up the boat. Corvo huddled in place and resolutely didn't allow himself to look up again until Daud said, some minutes later, "We're clear."

Corvo cautiously unfurled himself and glanced around. They were out in the middle of the river, the twin thrust of Coldridge and the Tower rapidly decreasing behind them. At some point while he wasn't paying attention, night had started to fall.

"There's supplies," Daud said, with a jerk of his chin. When Corvo obligingly looked down, he found a small knapsack at his feet. "Food, elixir, whatever."

Corvo raised a brow at him. The sickly yellow glow of the shore lamps couldn't reach this far out from the bank, but it seemed Daud could see him just fine, because one broad shoulder tipped in a shrug. "Wasn't sure what kind of shape you'd be in when I found you."

Corvo frowned at that, putting together some of the implications that had passed him by back in the gatehouse. If Daud had been expecting a wreck of a man, ruined from the torturer's blade… Well, then he hadn't been too far off, to be honest, but it did raise the question as to _why._ What could he possibly want from a broken-down husk of a failed bodyguard? The man had black magic and an army of mercenaries at his command - what could _Corvo_ provide that he couldn't manage on his own?

Corvo looked back to Daud, brow furrowed with questions he didn't have the voice to ask - and couldn't have even if he'd tried, since one look at the man's face dried every scrap of moisture in his throat. His eyes, his eyes were - By the Void, he _had no eyes,_ just deep pits of darkness where his eyes had been, shadows writhing and twisting in ceaseless churning motion in the hollows of his deep-set sockets.

Corvo looked away so hastily he almost sprained his neck. In comparison, the pack suddenly seemed like a much safer bet.

He hoisted it into his lap, biting back a groan at the shift of abused muscles, and cautiously unbuckled the top. Inside was an emergency kit not unlike the ones he'd kept stashed around the Tower: food, clothes, bandages, even a few vials of elixir. His mouth started watering at the sight of food, but he forced himself to reach past it for the elixir. He'd gotten his daily dose at Coldridge just like everyone else, but it'd been so watered down he was lucky if he was getting a half ration. This was the real thing, cherry-red and very faintly glowing in the twilight gloom.

"You're going to want that, where we're going."

When Corvo glanced cautiously back up at Daud, the disconcerting pool of shadow was gone from as if it had never been, leaving only a weary human squint in the moonlight. _Where_ are _we going,_ Corvo wanted to ask, and hoped his inquiring look did the asking for him.

"Rudshore," Daud clarified. Apparently reading him just fine, so at least one of them had their faculties intact. "Burrows cordoned it off, started dumping anyone who might be sick. It belongs to the plague now." His lips curled in something a more trusting man might have considered a smile. "And us."

Corvo looked at the white flash of his teeth in the gathering gloom, and decided he had no further questions.

###### 

Corvo forced down the elixir over the course of the next quarter-hour, taking small sips and breathing slowly to keep himself from heaving it back up. He knew from experience that once he got it down his stomach would settle enough that he'd be able to manage at least some of the food Daud had brought, but not before. He was hungry, sure, but not hungry enough to risk losing it back up over the side of the boat.

Luckily, Daud didn't seem to be in any hurry to get them to Rudshore, so once Corvo was sure his stomach wasn't going to rebel at the first sign of food, he dug back into the pack and felt his brows raise at the bounty within. An entire loaf of bread,some dented tins of preserved meat, even an _apple,_ a little bruised but mostly intact. The bread was probably the safest, but Corvo grabbed for the apple anyway, suddenly ravenous. _Void._ He hadn't had fruit since-

His teeth broke through the skin with a _snap_ , crisp tartness exploding across his tongue. It was almost too much after months of watery prison slop - too much flavor, too much _sensation_ \- but his jaw still remembered what to do with solid food, and Corvo chewed almost automatically, closing his eyes in silent rapture. He'd eaten better at Jessamine's table than most could ever dream, sampled elaborate four-course meals from the most skilled chefs in the Empire, but in that moment that mealy little apple was without a doubt the finest thing he'd ever tasted.

Corvo finished it quickly. Probably too quickly, judging from the twisting sensation from his middle. Corvo ignored it and forced down most of a tin of whale meat, then eyed the bread, which wasn't even _stale,_ by the void. Another warning cramp made him think better of it, and he folded it away with a shake of his head. Maybe later.

He caught Daud looking at him as he hefted the knapsack back down to the ground. It wasn't quite worry, exactly, but he'd very definitely noticed that Corvo barely ate enough to feed a child. Either he'd dealt with starving people before or it was more of his murderous politeness, however, because he offered only a gruff, "Be another hour if you want to catch some sleep," in response to Corvo's half-defiant look.

Corvo _did_ want to catch some sleep, in point of fact; now that his stomach was as full as it could reasonably be there were very few things he wanted more. He was also aware that the chances of him falling asleep in company were about nonexistent, so he just offered up an agreeable sort of shrug and leaned back on his elbows to watch the sky. It was a typical Dunwall winter, all murky gray clouds and half-hearted wisps of moonlight, but after six months of the same mildewy ceiling Corvo was fairly certain it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, second only to Emily's screwed-up little face when they put her in his arms for the first time.

Every now and then he felt a tingling sensation on the back of his neck that he was pretty damn sure meant Daud was watching him again, but it always went away again after a moment and Daud never said anything, so Corvo didn't feel the need to react. If Daud wanted some kind of thanks, or service, or answers, or… whatever it was that he broke Corvo out of Coldridge to get, then he could damn well ask him directly. Until then, Corvo didn't have to do a damn thing but wait.

Because he had an eye to the skyline, Corvo spotted the sentries nearly the moment they crossed what must have been the border of Daud's territory. As Daud steered them inland, Corvo watched with distant interest as one by one they rose, stretched, and disappeared in a flicker of shadow.

Well, now, that _was_ interesting. Rumor said that Daud's mercenaries shared in his black magic, but Corvo had ignored it as Abbey propaganda. But they'd been right enough about Daud's heresy, as it turned out, and evidently they'd been right about his followers too.

How did that _work_ , Corvo wondered. Did they share in his power, drinking from his reflected glory as courtiers suckled from the imperial teat? Or did the Void-touched flock instinctively together, following the will of the strongest? How many of them _were_ there, for that matter? Was it just Daud and his gang, or were there heretics scattered all over the city, with powers he couldn't hope to understand or defeat?

Corvo shook away the thought and straightened, looking ahead to the makeshift dock slabbed together just above the waterline. The missing sentries were collected there, identical in their rough gray coats and their sturdy rubber masks. Corvo couldn't decide if they were expecting an explanation or merely awaiting their master's instructions, but either way Daud didn't seem inclined to oblige them. He pulled up to the makeshift dock and tossed the rope to the closest Whaler with nothing more than a grunt of acknowledgement.

The silence that followed the cut of the motor was very _large,_ somehow, but Daud seemed not to notice, vaulting up to the walkway so smoothly it hardly rocked the boat. Corvo could hardly follow suit, but he managed to clamber up onto the dock without falling over onto his face, and that was accomplishment enough at the moment. He bent to retrieve the pack, exhaling slowly against the cry of protest from his aching joints, and turned to face the welcoming committee.

Under other circumstances, Corvo might have been able to muster some reaction to the sight of a half-dozen expressionless masks pointing at him like so many wax mannequins. Alarm, maybe, to be so thoroughly surrounded by what he had no doubt were well-trained killers. Curiosity, at the silent undercurrents of obedience and discipline that ran through the crowd like a live wire. Maybe even a frisson of amusement, at what to him seemed obvious discomfort: those masks hid a number of sins, but Corvo had been trained to read bodies, not faces, and these little ghosts had at best only an amateurish copy of that kinetic stillness he'd seen Daud draw over himself like a shroud. There was confusion in the shift of their weight, and unease in the subservient fold of their hands behind their back. Whatever Daud had planned for Corvo, he hadn't bothered to inform his men.

As things stood, however, Corvo couldn't muster up much of anything past the haze of fatigue that pressed down on him like a giant hand. He only hoisted the pack up onto his shoulder, ignoring the fresh burst of agony from his much-abused back, and waited for Daud to tell him where he'd be going next.

"Don't worry," Daud said, reading him as easily as he had all evening. "Recruits have to find their own way up, but you're a guest. We're going to take the shortcut."

###### 

Thankfully for Corvo's shattered nerves, his second trip through the Void went quicker than the first. Corvo chalked it up to familiarity: back in Coldridge, Daud had moved in short, fast bursts, jumping from the relative safety of one dubious foothold to the next as soon as he could sight his way. Here, in the heart of his own territory, he didn't seem to need the luxury of sight, stepping from floor to ledge to walkway as if they were laid out all in a path in front of him. Corvo merely had to hold on and try not to get left behind.

Their brief journey ended with a faint sucking sound as the Void relinquished its grasp, the world bleeding back into true once more. Daud released him barely a half-breath later, seemingly mistaking his convulsive shudder as a reaction to his touch, and nodded diffidently at the wide wooden stairs that led to some sort of platform. "Should be a basin up there, if you want to freshen up a bit."

Corvo stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, and Daud's lips twitched in something that might have been mistaken for a smile. "Haven't spent time inside myself, but I've known a fair few who have. They always said the first thing they wanted when they got out was some hot food and a hot bath. Can't do much about the hot, but the water's fresh, at least."

After a moment it occurred to Corvo that Daud was offering him a chance to _get clean._ His sudden eagerness must have shown on his face, because the lip twitch came back stronger this time. "Go on, then. No need to rush, I need to check in with my men."

Corvo nodded his thanks and trudged up the steps as hastily as his exhausted limbs would allow. At the top was a sturdy little cot, not much bigger than Corvo's bunk back in Coldridge and neatly made. Corvo ignored both the heavy steamer trunk at the foot and the overstuffed bookshelf at the head and made a beeline for the makeshift sink set up against the far wall. Carefully avoiding his reflection in the mirror propped up on the wobbly shelf above, he stripped off his filthy clothes and started the long process of scrubbing Coldridge from his battered skin.

The bite of the harsh lye soap over his various contusions kept his teeth gritted and his attention focused on the task at hand, but cleaning the crust of blood and excretions from the burn on his cheek left him panting, weak-kneed, braced against the wall just to remain upright. It was there, over the thunder of his pulse in his ears, that Corvo became aware of voices in the hallway outside the door: Daud and a younger woman, her low steady murmur a counterpoint to Daud's hoarse monotone. A lieutenant of some sort, Corvo determined after a moment, judging by the extremely even, 'are you fucking crazy, sir' tone of exasperated executive officers everywhere.

"So this is what you've been working on lately."

"That a problem?"

Daud's tone implied that it had _better_ not be one, but the pause before she answered made the lieutenant's feelings pretty clear. "A surprise," she said, diplomatically. "I didn't know you were working a job so close to the Tower."

"We're working a lot of jobs. That's what gets us paid."

"And are we, sir? Getting paid?"

There was a long pause. Corvo paused, too, interested in the answer.

"Think of it as a long-term investment," he said finally.

This must not have been the answer she wanted to hear, because the lieutenant let out an irritated sigh. "You don't need to do this. Just because you-"

"We're not talking about that."

Another sigh, this one clearly one of surrender. Daud's tone, flat and forbidding, hadn't left any other options. "Did you have to bring him _here,_ at least?"

"He's barefoot, half dead, and four stories up. Not like he's going anywhere." The shrug was nearly audible in Daud's gruff voice. "What about you, where are you on the Rothwild job?"

Corvo didn't hear her answer; presumably realizing that he was still within earshot, the lieutenant paused and then drew Daud further away from the door. Corvo straightened and returned to his task, more thoughtfully now. Probably he should be worried about the fact that he was effectively prisoner to a small army of heretical mercenaries, but it was still demonstrably better than his previous situation. Whatever Daud wanted from him, whatever _long term investment_ he expected to receive, Corvo would discover it in time.

And if it came to that, well, this base still had more ways out than fucking Coldridge.

By the time he was done the water was nearly black and the soap's bite had found a dozen other cuts and contusions he didn't remember getting, but Corvo was as close to clean as he'd been in nearly half a year. He spared a moment to consider the predictably well-kept razor next to the mirror, then glanced at the tremor of his fingers and thought better of it. Not like he could look any worse than Daud had already seen him, and it was probably better to leave his face well enough alone, for now. Instead he shivered his way into the spare clothes from Daud's pack - a little loose on his starveling frame, but sturdy and serviceable and most of all, _warm_ \- and ventured back downstairs on his silent bare feet.

Despite the ragged hole in the ceiling, Daud had built himself a cozy enough office in the back corner of the spacious room, recessed under the upper balcony and half-barricaded against the elements by a couple of leftover bookshelves. There was a sword jabbed into the back of one - or, more accurately, into the full-length portrait of the Royal Spymaster affixed to the back, as Corvo discovered when he circled the desk. The exact same portrait that sat above the desk in the interrogation chamber, in fact. Corvo had spent countless hours staring at it as Sullivan worked, and he stared at it now, hearing the hiss of the brazier, the damp grind of steel against whetstone-

Corvo wrenched his gaze away, a crawling shudder working its way down his spine as if to shake away the sense memory of a meaty hand on the back of his neck. Desperate for something else to hold his attention, he sidled over to the mission boards on the back wall, reasoning that Daud probably wouldn't have left him here if he'd minded Corvo seeing. And while at first he struggled to retain anything that wasn't a bright smear of color and ink, as his breathing slowed he found himself becoming genuinely absorbed by the tangle of information laid out before him. This, here, was the organized reality behind Daud's fearsome reputation: an orderly assortment of portraits and wanted posters, each surrounded by a small constellation of names, surveillance reports, and maps.

There was even a map of the Tower, every bit as detailed as the one on the wall of Corvo's office, annotated in a blocky shorthand Corvo didn't have a hope of deciphering. No name or picture adjoined the map, and Corvo wondered, with the incurious distance of the truly exhausted, who had been their target. One of Jessamine's admirals, maybe, or a visiting dignitary. Whoever it was, the Plague must have put paid to Daud's plans: there wasn't anyone left in the Tower worth killing but the empress herself, and no one would waste coin on an assassin when they could just let the Plague do its work.

 _The only thing leaving that Tower is corpses,_ Burrows's voice murmured in his ear, Corvo closed his eyes against the dull swell of fear. Did anyone know what was happening behind those impregnable stone walls? Was Jessamine even still alive in there?

Was anyone?

Corvo was still staring blankly at the map when Daud returned some minutes later, careful to make enough noise that Corvo heard him approach. He paused for a moment when he saw what Corvo was studying, but chose not to comment, only stepped past him and pinned a handwritten note on the other board. Corvo watched him, the square width of his crimson-clad shoulders, the delicate grace of his gloved fingers, and felt nothing but a gnawing emptiness that had nothing to do with hunger.

If Daud was uncomfortable with Corvo's scrutiny, he didn't show it. "Got some supper coming in a few," he said, as if this was an ordinary day and Corvo merely his guest. "Nothing fancy, but it's hot."

Corvo could only shake his head. The food he'd eaten cramped and pinched at his insides; hunger was a distant memory. And maybe Daud could see it on him, the way that fatigue pulled at his bones like the tide, because he grunted in consideration and jerked his chin at the steps. "Go on up and get some sleep, then."

The cot upstairs almost certainly belonged to Daud, but if he wanted to sacrifice his sleep for a - what was it - _barefoot, half-dead_ prisoner, Corvo certainly wasn't going to be the one to argue. He nodded through the haze of exhaustion and went, focusing hard to keep his feet from dragging on the steps and only mustering enough energy to pull back the blanket before he collapsed onto the lumpy mattress like a felled tree.

Corvo closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of cheap cigarettes and river water that clung to the sheets. One ear tuned to the susurration of magic from the sentries outside and the other to the small human noises of Daud in his office below, Corvo didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep until the Outsider came for him.

###### 

When he woke the next morning, Corvo knew immediately it hadn't been a dream. Not just because of the Mark on his hand - although that certainly made for compelling evidence - but because he felt _good._ Strong, steady - healthy, even, with the gray haze of exhaustion lifted and his mind clear for the first time in months. A testing roll of his shoulders brought the pull of scar tissue instead of the dull agony of half-healed flesh, and when he carefully probed at the weal on his cheek, he found only a thin line of slick knotted skin - no heat, no swelling, no pain.

No _pain._ Corvo had been hurting for so long that the absence of pain was almost a pleasure in and of itself.

Corvo stared down at stark black lines on the back of his hand, breath sawing in and out of his lungs. Then he closed his eyes and pressed it hard against his mouth, trying to still the trembling that ran through his limbs like water. Whispered _thank you_ into the unyielding press of Marked flesh, and then rose and went looking for his other unlikely savior.

He hadn't particularly taken any pains to keep quiet, but the room remained silent and still as a tomb. Empty, then, with no sign of Daud - or anyone else, for that matter, though Corvo would have expected at least a guard. Curious, he padded down to the office, but there was no note on that tidy desk, nothing to indicate what the Knife of Dunwall expected from his misplaced prisoner. Hmm. Either Daud didn't think he'd be awake so early, or he hadn't thought about Corvo one way or another. After all, it wasn't like he was _going_ anywhere.

Corvo stared at the map of the Tower, flexing his Marked hand at his side, and shook his head. Whatever Daud wanted from him - whatever debt Corvo would justly be expected to pay - it would just have to wait. Corvo had an appointment to keep, and he was six months overdue.

It was the work of moments to pick the lock on Daud's trunk: Corvo was out of practice, but there clearly wasn't much worry that someone would dare interfere with his things. _Must be nice,_ Corvo thought sourly, and tugged out the spare uniform folded neatly on top of the pile. Daud might have been right about him not getting very far on bare feet, but luckily the boots he found underneath were a near-perfect fit, in the wrapped style he preferred with worked leather soles and braced with steel. Daud - or someone - had good taste. It seemed likely they'd been meant for someone else, because the sturdy blue uniform coat was only a little loose on Corvo's narrow frame, and he had nearly a head of height and half the chest of the sturdily-built Knife of Dunwall.

Well, their loss was his gain, whoever they were. Corvo buttoned it tight against the chill nip of harbor wind and shaved briskly in last night's filthy wash water, working gingerly around the unfamiliar knot of scar tissue and avoiding his reflection in the mirror. His appetite didn't seem to have returned along with his health, but Corvo forced down the rest of last night's rations anyway. He'd need the strength, where he was going.

Climbing up into the windowsill to get a look at his surroundings, Corvo found himself smothering a snort when he recognized the area. Daud had taken over Rudshore, alright; he'd made his base in none other than the former Chamber of Commerce itself. Was it only that this was the most secure building in the district, or had it been more in the way of a private joke at the Crown's expense? Impossible to know for sure. All Corvo really knew about Daud, when it came right down to it, was that he was every bit as dangerous as the Abbey claimed and also kinder than anyone else Corvo had met in the last half a year. Neither fact told him much about whether or not the Knife of Dunwall had a sense of humor.

Corvo threw one last glance over his shoulder, toward the empty rumpled cot and the silent room beyond. In another world, he might have liked the chance to find out for himself.

In this one, he resolutely turned his back and looked down, waiting impatiently for the patrolling Whaler to pass beneath his feet. When the path was clear, Corvo took a deep breath, closed his Marked hand into a fist, and threw himself out into the Void.

###### 

It took him most of the day to make it to the Tower, but that was fine. Corvo hadn't planned on making his approach until dark, and it gave him time to experiment with his new abilities. There was definitely a limit to how far and how often he could blink around: only half as far as Daud and about four times in quick succession, respectively. Any more than that and he started to feel stretched and empty inside - somewhere down deep, beyond muscle and bone. But if he took it in short hops and kept moving in between, he didn't have to slow down at all.

And moving felt _good,_ after so long in Coldridge. He'd tried to exercise at first, as much as he could in the narrow confines of his cell, but eventually the food and the fever and Sullivan's attentions had taken their toll. It'd been months since he'd been able to muster the strength, but today his body felt like his own again. Too thin, still - whatever the Outsider had done hadn't given back any of his lost weight - but the shift of bone and muscle under his skin, the length of his stride as he ran across the length of a roof and the strength of his arms as he vaulted over a balcony railing, that was his. Burrows had taken it from him, bit by excruciating bit, but the Outsider had given it back.

Another gift. Corvo didn't know what he'd done to deserve any of it, or what price he'd have to pay, but he was grateful. Even as fear of what he might find beyond the Tower's gray walls choked him, he was still grateful.

All of the street-level entrances had been thoroughly locked down, of course, with guards and barricades and walls of light. Corvo had given the latter a wide berth during his trek here from Rudshore: they hadn't been widely in use before his incarceration, but he hadn't forgotten the demonstration that accompanied last year's security briefing. Thankfully, Corvo had no intention of trying to cross the quarantine line, not when the water lock was alone and unmanned, supposedly locked fast against any incursion. Maybe for an ordinary thief, but Corvo was no longer ordinary: all he had to do was swim up to the gate and then blink right up the inner wall.

There wasn't much in the way of security on this side of the quarantine line, but Corvo took his time scouting out the grounds anyway, as much to finish drying off as to reconnoiter. It looked like most of the guards had fled before the quarantine, which wasn't that much of a surprise. Burrows would have taken control of the treasury first, if he had any sense, which meant he was the one paying their wages. There was no point wasting anger on men just trying to look out for themselves in a world gone increasingly mad, but Corvo allowed himself a few minutes to wallow in it anyway. He'd worked next to those guards for _years_ , before things went wrong. Most of them he'd hand-picked himself, at least until Burrows had come in with his 'extra security.' How many loyal men had even been _left_ by the time the Overseers came for him? How had he missed it happening right under his fucking nose?

Useless questions. None of it mattered now, not really. But he didn't have much else to think about except what he would find inside the Tower walls, and this was by far the preferable way to occupy his thoughts.

When he'd dried off enough that he wouldn't drip a betraying trail of river water on the imperial carpets, Corvo blinked across to the top of the guardhouse and up to the servant's washroom, slipping through the window the maids always left open so they could smoke in peace. Inside the hallways proved nearly as deserted as the grounds, with only a token force of guards on patrol and a scant handful of servants hurrying along with downcast eyes. Crouched on top of bookcases and window-ledges, Corvo studied their faces as they passed heedlessly below him, searching for signs of the plague. He couldn't see any, but that didn't mean there were none, deeper inside. It didn't mean Jessamine was safe.

As he made his way up to the imperial floor, the thing that struck Corvo the most was the _quiet._ He'd lived in the Tower for the best part of two decades and he couldn't remember a time when there wasn't a gentle swell of noise in the background, the tramp of mailed boots on patrol and the laughter of servants in the kitchens. The constant background hum of people living their lives was muted now, almost hushed, and it only grew quieter as he worked his way up through the Tower. By the time he reached the imperial floor, his surroundings had developed the ringing silence of a tomb.

The Protector's quarters were locked against intrusion - against _further_ intrusion, Corvo thought with a ripple of bitter humor - but the ancient padlock put up minimal resistance and he slipped in well before the lone patrolling guard could turn the corner and spot the Doom of Dunwall breaking back into the scene of the crime. Inside, things looked the way the Overseers must have left it on the day of his arrest: furniture overturned and drawers pulled out, the contents strewn around the room. No doubt they'd enjoyed themselves.

Corvo ignored the sick-hot sense of violation creeping over him and rifled mechanically through his scattered belongings, moving as quietly as possible with the landmine of trip hazards. It wouldn't have been so bad if he could see what he was doing, but the moon was hidden by the usual Dunwall clouds and he couldn't risk using the lamps, lest the guard notice light leaking under the doorway. He was searching blind.

Or maybe not, he thought, remembering the way Daud's eyes had turned black in the moonlight. There was another of the Outsider's gifts he had yet to try.

Self-consciously, Corvo closed his eyes and passed his hand in front of them, pulling the Void over himself as the Outsider had taught him. When he opened them again the darkness unfolded before him like a lover, and he could see as clearly as if it were day.

He could also hear a rune, hissing and burbling just like it had sounded last night, in his dream. Heart pounding, he spun in a circle, trying to identify the direction. It sounded very close, almost on top of- _There._ A flash of green, nestled in the shadows under the bed. Corvo knelt gingerly on the heap of half-shredded sheets and craned his body to reach for it. His fingers caught against a floorboard that hadn't been loosened last time he checked, and after a quick, fortifying breath, he set his jaw and pulled it the rest of the way loose.

The rune gleamed at him from the shadows, its tuneless hum a little louder now, almost like it was pleased to be found. Corvo shook away the insinuating whisper and plucked it up, hissing a little in surprise at the unexpected weight. He'd been expecting something more like a bone charm, a little thing worn under the clothes, but it was nearly the size of his palm and solid, cool to the touch. How the Overseers had missed it during their search, he had no idea. Whoever hid it must have been much more thorough in their work.

 _Whoever._ There had been a part of Corvo that had wondered, all those long months along in his cell, if Burrows had ever had any evidence against him at all, or if the whole plan had been a bald-faced bluff hinged on the world of the High Overseer. But here in his hands was testament otherwise: tangible proof that someone had breached the most secure stronghold in the entire Isles, snuck into the imperial quarters to seed heresies among his belongings, and escaped without anyone the wiser.

It had to have been magic; it just didn't make sense otherwise. Part of the reason Corvo hadn't really believed it was that he knew this Tower better than anyone alive and _he_ couldn't have done the job, not on his best day. But he hadn't believed in magic then either, not really. He knew better now. Six months ago Burrows couldn't have managed it even if he _had_ paid one of his guards enough to commit treason, but Corvo's very presence here was testament to how little the Tower walls meant to one with the Outsider's gifts. Like him - or like Daud.

But it couldn't have been Daud. If he was in Burrows's employ, why bother saving Corvo in the first place? And besides, Daud hated Burrows. That was what Corvo had missed before, that thing in Daud's voice when he had said _the Acting Regent_ like he expected Corvo to understand: bitterness, as wide and dark as the ocean and twice as cold. And there was that sword thrust through his portrait, back in Daud's office. No, Daud didn't make sense. But if there were two of them Marked by the Outsider's favor, why not others? Who knew what went through the mind of a god. Perhaps he amused himself by pitting them against each other to see who would prove the stronger.

If so, Corvo hadn't been making a particularly good showing of himself. What kind of bodyguard was he, to so completely miss such a blade aimed at his lady's throat? What kind of fucking Lord Protector couldn't even notice when the enemy had breached his own void-damned _bedroom_?

Corvo shook his head and stood, slipping the rune into his pocket. It didn't matter now, really. There wasn't a damned thing he could do to change it, so he just had to keep moving forward and hope that next time he wouldn't fail.

The room might have been a wreck, but there had been surprisingly little looting. Probably the Overseers wouldn't have wanted to risk taking something tainted, and the locked doors had dissuaded the usual treasure-hunters until the quarantine came down and made it a moot point. Corvo was able to unearth a change of clothes with only moderate difficulty, though he hesitated as he did up the buttons of his uniform coat. The blue coat seemed to look at him accusingly from where he'd flung it across the end of the overturned mattress, and after a moment he cursed and stuffed it into a knapsack along with the rest of the borrowed clothes.

It wasn't because he had any intention of returning them to their rightful owner, Corvo told himself as he eased out of his room and clicked the lock shut behind him. It just wouldn't do for someone to find a Whaler uniform in with the rest of his things. His reputation didn't need any help.

Jessamine's rooms were just down the hall, an arrangement that had seemed very clever at twenty-five and less so once he'd realized just how much the servants gossiped. Still, he'd been grateful for it often enough over the years, and he was grateful for it now; the distance left him only a few seconds to worry about what he'd find before he was slipping through the big double-doors into a room he knew as well as his own.

Nothing. The bedroom was empty, cool and dim in the twilight silence. Somehow, Corvo failed to find it a reassurance.

What he did find, however, were signs of recent occupancy. The fireplace was brushed and empty of all but the waiting kindling, but the stones on the hearth still held a trace of lingering warmth, and a discarded teacup still sat on the breakfast table, still half-full of Jessamine's preferred blend. A dressing gown lay flung across the end of the bed, where she always tossed it when she rose to dress, and the air smelled of her perfume. There were no medicines, no bandages, no traces of stains of blood or bile on the sheets: if the plague had touched this room, Corvo couldn't find any sign of it.

She was here, then. She was alive. Burrows hadn't taken her from him yet.

 _That's assuming she believes you, old man,_ a nasty voice whispered in his ear. _That's assuming Burrows didn't drip poison into her ear until she shuddered at the very thought of ever letting you touch her. That's assuming she won't just call for the guards the second she sees your face._

No. He wouldn't let himself believe that. Jessamine knew him, better than anyone else in the world; she knew he'd never do anything to betray her and their daughter. And surely, _surely_ she'd never believe him capable of engineering the Plague. He'd never been overfond of the Abbey, to be sure, but he wasn't some kind of _heretic_ to-

Corvo looked down at his hand and choked on his own bitter laugh. Well. Couldn't say that anymore, could he? Even if she hadn't believed it before, she'd have a hard time denying it now, with the Outsider's mark branded on his flesh for all to see. He _was_ one of them now, and never mind that he'd never asked for any of this, because he hadn't said no, either, and wouldn't have even if the Outsider had bothered to give him a choice. Couldn't look at it as anything but a gift, and maybe that made him a heretic after all, but damned if he knew any other way to be. He'd always use every single tool at his disposal to protect her and Emily, even if-

He closed his eyes.

-even if she hated him for it. Even then, he'd do what he had to do, and then he'd leave her be. One way or another, he always did what he had to, in order to keep his family safe.

Corvo took one last look at the empty room, the little signs of life and hope that infused the unfamiliar silence. Then he placed an orchid on her pillow, where he knew she'd see it as soon as she readied for bed, and slipped out into the gardens to wait.

###### 

He didn't have to wait long. Less than an hour after he settled on the roof of the pavilion to watch, an achingly familiar slim figure slipped out the kitchen door and disappeared down the lower path. Corvo rose, stretched, and followed her to the greenhouse.

Even in this, she was cautious, his clever, darling girl. She circled the building once, careful to keep her silhouette from catching the light in case anyone was watching from inside, and only then did she slowly, carefully, ease open the door and slip inside. Corvo stood in the shadows and watched, transfixed, as she drifted up the path between rows of flowers, her slippered feet nearly silent on the hard-packed dirt floor. He'd taught her that, when he was still new to his position: how to move quietly, how to escape notice and fade into the background. She'd wanted to know how to survive outside the Tower walls, and Corvo had wanted to make her smile, because even then - even when she was still young and untried and unsure of herself, years away yet from that first brandy-soaked kiss at Fugue - he'd known she held all of him, whole and entire, in the palm of her delicate hand.

"Hello?" she called softly, peering into the shadowed silence of the greenhouse. "Is anyone there?"

Corvo hadn't spoken in almost half a year. Had screamed, at times - had moaned and gasped, all the sounds no man was strong enough to withhold from a torturer's blade - but not one single word had crossed his lips since they put him in Coldridge. He wasn't even sure he knew how anymore. But when he looked at his empress, her hair in disarray and her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, he opened his mouth and said her name.

No sooner had it left his lips than he winced at the sound of his voice, more a corpse at a mummer's play than a man. But Jessamine let out a little gasp of recognition, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Corvo?" she whispered through her fingers, her eyes gone wide and white in the moonlight. "Corvo, is that you?"

"Jessamine," he said again, helplessly, and stepped forward out of the shadows. For a moment their eyes met, her face seemingly empty of anything but shock, and Corvo braced himself for the worst. Anger, tears, a shout for the guards-

"It _is_ you," she said tremulously, and threw herself into his arms.

He caught her up with a grunt of effort and then just held her, trembling, breathing in the familiar floral smell of her perfume. He'd dreamed of this so long that he almost couldn't believe that it was happening, that he was standing here with his lady in his arms, her small cold hands fisted in his coat and her tears soaking his collar. Surely he'd fallen asleep in his cell, and all of this was just some terrible, wonderful dream, sure to break him upon waking-

Over her shoulder, he caught sight of his left hand, shrouded with haphazard linen wrappings to hide the Mark, and realized with a shuddering jolt that this was _real._

"I knew it," she was saying, when he lifted his head. "I knew it, I knew it, I _knew_ you weren't dead-"

Realization struck him to the quick. "He said-"

"I _knew_ he was lying," she assured him fiercely, as if afraid she wouldn't be believed. "He wouldn't waste your death on anything less than a public execution, and I would have heard if- I would have _heard._ "

"Yes," he agreed, because he didn't doubt it, even locked away in here. Burrows always had underestimated her. Just not, when it came down to it, quite _enough._ "I'm here."

"That you are." She released her clutching grip on his borrowed coat to reach up, and it took everything he had not to flinch away as her curious fingers traced along the fresh burl of scar on his cheek. "Though it looks as if it was a very narrow thing indeed. Oh, my love, what has that man done to you?"

Nothing he wanted to think about, and nothing could say to her anyway. Corvo shook his head, unwilling to bring those months into the quiet magic of this moment between them, and watched Jessamine's face fall in realization.

"Very well, I shan't press you. Don't worry, love, his justice will come swiftly, now that you are with me again." She was touching him in earnest now, both chilled hands cupped around the warmth of his jaw. "But - my dear, you must forgive me the question - how _are_ you here? Not that I'm not indescribably glad to see you, of course, but I know something of the security at Coldridge. How did you escape? How did you get _here,_ across the quarantine line? Even the smugglers-" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Well. It's very impressive, is all. Even for you."

The necessary explanations loomed over him, impossibly taxing to contemplate even with his newly rediscovered voice. He was in no hurry to see her tremulous smile fall away at his tale - and he had more urgent concerns, besides. "Emily?"

Jessamine's expression softened immediately. "Of course, you wouldn't know. She's safe, love. Not- Not in a _good_ situation, you understand, with Hiram… But she's out of the city, away from the plague. He wouldn't risk harming her."

Corvo wasn't so sure, but Jessamine would know. He'd never had any head for politics, and if she said Burrows didn't dare make a move, he had to trust that she knew what she was about. She'd never gamble Emily's life on anything less than a surety, even with everything that was at stake.

Jessamine was watching him, her pale eyes shrewd, but all she said was, "How much do you know of what's happened since your arrest?"

Corvo shook his head. Burrows had told him plenty, but he couldn't trust any of it, and the cellblock gossip was so laughably distorted as to be entirely useless. He could have asked Daud, probably, if- Well, if.

"Well." Jessamine took a deep breath and then slowly let it out again. "Come sit with me, then, and I'll tell you what you've missed."

###### 

It was a grim tale - though not, thankfully, as grim as his fevered imaginings, all those months locked away in his cell. There was generally only one reason to remove a bodyguard from the side of the person they were meant to be guarding, but as it turned out, it wasn't Corvo's protection that Burrows had been seeking to eradicate, but his supposed influence over Jessamine's rule.

"He seemed to believe that the decisions he disagreed with so vehemently were the work of your 'conniving manipulations,'" Jessamine said bitterly. "He was not best pleased to discover I have a mind of my own, and had no intention of leaving you or the empire in his hands."

Jessamine had started calling for an investigation almost as soon as Corvo's arrest had been completed, justifiably certain it was a frame-up to strip her of her protections and cast doubt on her rule. Burrows had seemed to assist her at first, promising to look into the matter even as he claimed custody was an Abbey matter and out of his hands. Eventually Jessamine had grown tired of waiting on the results of his investigations and had quietly started to look into the matter herself. It hadn't taken her long to discover that Corvo was being held in Coldridge, not Holger Square.

"And yet even then I didn't realize the extent of his treachery. I thought that he was merely humoring me, pretending to assist when he had no intention of risking the very public nightmare of trying to free you. It never occurred to me that he was the one who was responsible for putting you away."

Unfortunately, Burrows had either anticipated this outcome or had grown weary of Jessamine's supposedly 'wrongheaded' policies, and had come prepared with leverage even an empress couldn't deny. When Jessamine had confronted Burrows, he wasted only a little time with denials before he informed her that Lady Emily had been removed from the Tower.

"Only for her own good, naturally," Jessamine said, smiling blackly. "It wasn't _safe_ in Dunwall for such a young, adventurous girl like her. She'd be better off spending some time outside of the city - with one of his cronies, of course - until the Plague was under control. And he knew _just_ the way to make that happen."

Burrows had emerged triumphant in that struggle, but Jessamine wasn't yet out of the game. Even as she'd made an appearance of going along with his machinations, she'd been quietly consolidating a counter-coup in the background. Burrows had the Abbey at his back and most of Parliament in his pocket, but he wasn't untouchable, and even after everything Jessamine's crown still stood for something. She'd almost gathered enough evidence to press charges in the next Parliamentary session when two Tower servants were discovered dead outside the gates with blood on their faces, and Parliament voted near-unanimously to place the Tower under quarantine.

"I'm still not sure if Burrows actually caught wind of my plan, or if he just saw an opportunity to cut out the middleman and rule directly," Jessamine told him. "Either way, it seemed likely the only way he'd let me through the gates was on a corpse cart. Luckily, my allies managed to smuggle a message to me with the next supply drop, and we've been attempting to coordinate your escape from Coldridge ever since. Only… it seems someone else got there first?"

Corvo's throat closed at the gentle question in her eyes. He didn't want to say it. Didn't want to break what fragile sense of peace his presence seemed to have brought her, but answers were the absolute least of what he owed her, so-

"Yes," he said, with some difficulty. "Daud."

The long vowel seemed to catch in his throat, grating against sore flesh like stone against stone, but she didn't flinch at the inhuman rasp anymore than when he'd said her name. Instead, a slight wrinkle formed between her manicured brows, a small puzzled frown that didn't abate as she said, "You don't mean-"

"The Knife."

"Oh." The wrinkle smoothed out, replaced by the perfect blankness of her court expression. Corvo might have worried what emotions were brewing behind that controlled stillness, but he recognized the tilt of her head, the infinitesimal twitch of her fingertips against her thigh. Jessamine was thinking. He could see the calculation play out across her pretty face, all of the things that he hadn't had the space to consider last night when he still considered her dead or worse. He wasn't surprised when the next words out of her mouth were, "And what was his price?"

Corvo shook his head. Daud hadn't asked for one. Presumably he would have gotten around to it, if Corvo hadn't slipped away with the morning dew.

"A favor, then," Jessamine concluded. "For when I'm in a place to grant them again. I wonder what someone like that could need from the crown?"

Corvo shrugged. That level of machination was beyond him, always had been. He was good at reading people, usually, but Daud had been too controlled even for his practiced eye, and nothing he'd learned had given him any better idea what was going on in the man's head.

"Although the Knife is supposed to be a heretic, isn't he?" Jessamine mused, heedless of the drift of his thoughts. She shook her head, her mouth turned down at the corners in a moue of distaste. "Who knows why any of them do the things they do."

Something cold slithered into Corvo's chest at her words, a sly little eel of dread he'd almost kept at bay. He was one of those heretics now, wasn't he? As sure as Daud or the nameless intruder who'd made a ruin of his life. She deserved to know what sort of man she'd allowed to touch her.

"Jess," he said quietly. She blinked at him, perhaps surprised to hear him speak without prompting. "There's more."

"More?" At his tight nod, a small wrinkle appeared between her brows. "Corvo, what is it?"

He didn't have the words. Of fucking _course_ , he didn't have the words. But he didn't need them, not for this. All he needed to do was lift his left hand and pull away the makeshift wrappings, leaving the Mark bare in the moonlight.

Jessamine sucked in a breath. As a Gristolian, her Abbey education had been a lot more thorough than his; she recognized it immediately. Still, she reached out a tremulous hand, her fingers just barely skimming the air above his Marked skin, and asked, "Is that…?"

Corvo nodded.

" _How_?"

Corvo shrugged helplessly, but under her sharp-eyed glance cleared his throat and made the attempt. "He… came to me," he said, picking his way carefully through the explanation. "Last night. Said I was… interesting." He almost mumbled the last word, more of a breath of a whisper leaving his lips, and he cleared his throat again, looking away from Jessamine's shrewd gaze. "He didn't ask."

Jessamine said nothing, and when Corvo looked back, she was studying his hand with the flinty intensity she brought to bear on trade agreements and proposals of marriage. He steeled himself, trying to harden his heart for the worst. She could shove him away, call for the guards. She could look at him with disgust, with such betrayal in those eyes. She could-

Of all the bitter fates he'd imagined, none could have stunned him so much as what she did next: still frowning slightly in concentration, she took his Marked hand in her soft slender fingers and brought it to her lips.

"Whatever price they might ask," she told him, her breath hot on his knuckles and her pale eyes intent on his own, "The Outsider or the Knife or anyone else - I will pay it and gladly, dear heart, to have you returned to me once more."

###### 

The sun was just coming up over the horizon when Corvo heard the faint strains of a boat motor putt-putt-puttering in towards the shore. He stayed where he was, all but hidden in the lee of the rocks, and watched as a man in shabby fisherman's clothing steered a small riverboat up to the makeshift pier with familiar skill. He matched the description Jessamine gave, he was alone, and when Corvo shifted into the voidsight to check for a tail, he found nothing but a bone charm whispering under his shirt, a quiet little thing for fast and fortunate journeys.

Good enough.

If the boatman was surprised to see Corvo appear from thin air only a few paces away, you couldn't see it from his face. "Lord Attano!" he said, with every evidence of pleasure. "Bless me, sir, but it's a relief to see you here, truly it is."

Corvo cocked his head.

"The announcement's all over about you escapin' Coldridge," the boatman explained. "Word is that you'd be on the next boat off the Isle, but I told myself you wouldn't flee, would you, not bein' her Majesty's man and all. And here you are!"

Corvo almost wanted to smile at his enthusiasm. Even before Coldridge, he hadn't been the kind of man strangers were happy to meet. "Here I am," he agreed.

The boatman didn't flinch at the sound of his voice, another mark in his favor. "Well, best not hang about," he said briskly, and jerked his head toward the boat. "We've got a safe place, just down the river a ways." His gaze flickered uncertainly over Corvo's frame. "You can rest up, get some food in your belly."

Corvo nodded and vaulted over the lip of the boat, correcting easily as it rocked under his feet. Oh yes, he was a long way from the wreck he'd been when Daud took him from Coldridge. Even if he _was_ still thin enough that a stranger could see it through the padding in his jacket. He'd have to do something about that. It was hard to intimidate a man if he thought you too weak to lift your sword.

Or maybe it didn't matter. They were long past courtly pageantry, after all. This was a time for action, and Corvo was more than well enough for that.

Silence fell as the boatman steered them away from the shore and out into the shipping lanes. Corvo watched the riverfront slip away into darkness and wondered idly where they were heading. Not down into Rudshore, surely? Although that would certainly be a bit of irony for the books, right there. If so, he'd have to find a way to warn them about the Whaler scouts without revealing how he knew.

"Where are we going?"

The boatman didn't startle at the sudden rasp of his voice, or if he did, he hid it well enough in the dim pre-dawn light. "Oh, beggin' your pardon, sir, forgot you wouldn't know. Little place called the Hound Pits Pub, closed for business now. Half the district's marked off as dead from plague, but we're secure enough there so long as we shade the lights from the Watch at night." He grinned. "We're right under the Regent's nose, and he don't know a thing."

So not in Rudshore proper, then, but more or less right next door. Burrows might not have noticed the Loyalists holed up in a plague zone, but Corvo found it unlikely that the Whalers wouldn't. He wondered how long it would take Daud to track him down, if he decided to come looking.

He wondered what he would do if he did.

"You trust them?" he asked. "These Loyalists?"

The pause before the boatman answered told him all Corvo needed to know, really. "The Admiral's a man to be reckoned with," he said diplomatically. "If anyone can help you find that girl, Lady Emily, and get her Majesty back on her throne, he can."

Corvo smiled mirthlessly. "But?"

Another little pause, this one clearly deciding whether or not Corvo was worth trusting. He must have decided in Corvo's favor, because after a moment he said, "Between you and me, sir… They're a little too used to having their own way, if you take my meanin'. They're not bad men, just more used to givin' orders than taking 'em. Might be a little slow to listen to the likes of you, even with you bein' the empress's man an' all. Just step careful."

Wordlessly, Corvo held up his hand in answer. His right hand.

The boatman peered curiously across the boat, then barked a quiet laugh. "Ah, yeah, that'll do ya fine," he said, amusement curling in his voice like smoke. "Even Lord Pendleton won't be able to argue with that."

Corvo made note of that - it said something, that the boatman assumed he'd be first in line to cause a problem - and leaned back against the gunwale, stretching his legs out in front of him. There were probably other questions he could ask, details he could tease out to prepare himself, but… for what, exactly? These men weren't his enemy, not if they'd gone this far in support of Jessamine. He wasn't sure if he trusted their loyalty, exactly, but they had to know they couldn't turn traitor now, not after all they'd done. Jessamine was willing to trust in their self-interest, so Corvo would do the same unless they gave him a reason to think otherwise.

"My name's Samuel, by the by," the boatman offered up, into the easy quiet between them. "Seein' as how I forgot to mention that earlier, too. Samuel Beechworth. It's an honor to make your acquaintance, sir, it really is."

"Corvo," he said, and smiled. "Call me Corvo."

###### 

Corvo fell asleep to the glare of weak winter sunshine and woke in the dark with a figure looming above him, black against black in the quiet little attic. It wasn't one of the maids, the shoulders too broad, so Corvo didn't bother to hesitate before bringing up his knee and flipping them both off the bed in a furious tangle of limbs.

The intruder had training, that became obvious the moment they hit the ground. He also had the advantage of weight on Corvo and wasn't afraid to use it, straining up against him and flipping them with a grunt of effort. But Corvo had spent his childhood on the streets of Karnaca pitting his strength against men who thought their size made them invincible, and he kept them rolling, a brief scrabbling exchange of blows as they tumbled end-over-end across the floor. When they fetched up against the wall, Corvo was on top again, his left hand wrapped around the intruder's throat - and his right holding the point of his brand-new sword against the intruder's cheek, hidden in his pocket and extended to full length with a flick of his wrist.

The intruder froze. The sound of their panting filled the empty attic, and Corvo held still for a moment, listening for any pounding feet from below. The level under him was unoccupied, but if one of the others had been in the stairwell, or if they'd been louder than he thought-

Nothing. Corvo let out a slow breath, and then turned his attention back to the intruder under him, the point of his sword never wavering from next to the man's eye. The intruder hadn't moved either, except to hold his hands up above his shoulders, palms out in the universal gesture of surrender. Corvo squinted through the obscuring dark and considered whether or not to switch to the void-sight; the last thing he needed was for the intruder to catch sight of his eyes and start yelling about heresy. But before he could decide, a shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating a scarred face and tired gray eyes.

Daud.

Corvo muffled an oath and scrambled off of him, folding the sword closed with a quiet _snikt_ of metal. Daud watched him warily to make sure it would stay that way, then sat up with a grimace, rubbing his throat. "Nice toy."

Corvo said nothing, his fingers tense on the hilt. He didn't think he was in danger from Daud, not really. He just- couldn't let go.

Daud didn't fail to notice, and the answering flick of his eyes was almost wry. "If I was here to hurt you, bodyguard, I wouldn't have waited for you to wake up first."

Corvo nodded - that was more than fair - and forced his frozen fingers to uncurl, sliding the folded hilt back into his coat pocket. The tense line of Daud's shoulders loosened, something that might have been a smile lurking in the cut of his cheek. "And here I thought you were bait for the hagfish. Should have known. How'd you make it out of Rudshore, anyway?"

Corvo hesitated, debating on how to answer. But before he could decide, Daud's assessing gaze drifted from his scarred cheek down across the double-stitched lapels of his unbuttoned coat to the back of his hand, lying bare in his lap.

Corvo winced.

"Well," Daud said, after a moment. He was too controlled for anything to show on his face, but there was a faint tremble to his hoarse voice, a lick of tension riding over his frame. "Guess that explains it. Damn. Just like that black-eyed bastard." He must have seen the question on Corvo's face, because he smiled, a bitter little thing, and explained, "He's got a taste for lost causes and desperate men."

 _Which one were you,_ Corvo wondered, but did not ask. He already knew he wouldn't get an answer.

"Although he's not the only one, I suppose." Corvo looked up sharply at that, and Daud glanced away, moonlight cutting stripes across his scarred cheek. "I was going to offer you a place in the Whalers. That's one of my gifts, to share some of my abilities with those that are bonded to me. I thought you might… But of course, you're for greater things, aren't you?" He glanced downward again, but this time his gaze lingered on Corvo's right hand, where Jessamine's signet gleamed in the moonlight. "In more ways than one."

It was true, of course - Corvo had belonged to Jessamine for twenty years, and he'd belong to her when he was cold in the ground - but Corvo still felt like he'd misstepped somehow, spurned a gift he hadn't known was there for the taking.

Or maybe, he thought, considering the spare uniform crumpled at the bottom of his pack, he just hadn't been paying attention. _Intended for someone else,_ indeed, he thought with a wry curl of something that might have been affection. _That_ had been Daud's 'long term investment' in Corvo's survival? To _recruit_ him? But surely a man like Daud couldn't have had any use for the broken-down wreck he'd hauled out of Coldridge. Did his bond work the same way as the Outsider's Mark, granting strength and vigor to replace what was lost? Or was there something else he'd wanted from Corvo, some use that only a Royal Protector could serve?

And then, watching in dumb silence as Daud shook his head and gathered himself to leave, Corvo realized that he didn't have to wonder, now. He could _ask._

At the sound of his, "Why?" Daud froze, halfway to climbing out of the window, and turned, his expression arrested. Oddly bashful under the sudden intensity of his regard, Corvo cleared his throat and tried again: "Why did you save me?"

Daud studied him for a long time without answering. Long enough that Corvo wondered if he'd ever answer, or if they'd just fall asleep like this, drift off into the Void with Daud still looming above him like a gargoyle. For all he wanted, _needed_ to know the answer, he still found something peaceful in the silence that fell between them.

Finally Daud stirred and shook his head, a frown flexing in the sharp line of his jaw. "It's the least of what you're owed, bodyguard," he rasped, and then leapt from the window and vanished into the night.

Corvo didn't chase after him. There wouldn't be much point, even if he knew what he wanted to say. Instead he returned to bed, where he grimly re-wrapped his hand before he curled up under the blankets. He took his sword out of his pocket and put it under his pillow, the signet ring clicking faintly against the smooth wooden hilt.

When he slept, he dreamed of the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born out of two ideas. The first was "What if Jessamine lived and the city _still_ went to shit, would that be fucked up or what?" The other was "wouldn't it be nice if Daud had done something useful with his guilt complex without the Outsider having to rub his nose in it like a misbehaving puppy?" And now here we are. At least he tried?
> 
> I'm [sorrelchestnut](https://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi!


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